At its final meeting on Tuesday, December 12, the outgoing New Rochelle City Council passed a resolution accepting the recommendation of the Community-Police Partnership Board (CPPB) for a Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) empowered only to review investigations by the police of their own alleged misconduct, not to do its own independent investigations.

The unanimous vote of the City Council followed a Citizens To Be Heard session on December 5 at which residents continued to object to the “review-only” model and again demanded a CCRB with full investigative and subpoena powers. 

Community members have been calling for a fully empowered CCRB since the city began its state-mandated police reform process in late 2020, in response to worldwide protests against police violence and structural racism triggered by the police killing of George Floyd. 

In New Rochelle, protests in 2020 focused on the still-unexplained police killing of Kamal Flowers by New Rochelle police officer Alec McKenna in May of that year.  In July 2023, more protests followed the fatal shooting of Jarrell Garris by NRPD Detective Steven Conn on Lincoln Avenue after Garris allegedly ate some fruit without paying at a local grocery.  Flowers and Garris were both Black; McKenna and Conn are both white, and both are still on the force with full pay and benefits.

The resolution passed by the Council simply “accepts the CPPB’s recommendation to create a review-focused oversight model as the framework for community-police oversight in the City of New Rochelle.”

 When it was initially presented on December 5, the resolution was accompanied by an “attachment” proposing that the CCRB consist of seven (7) community members and “two (2) ex-officio members (the Presidents, or their designees, of the PBA and SOA) that can be helpful to the Board in carrying out its duties.”  The Police Benevolent Association (PBA) and Superior Officers Association (SOA) are the unions representing junior and senior police officers, respectively.

This “attachment,” which was never previously made public, was apparently adopted by the CPPB in a closed meeting after it heard public comment–almost all in favor of a fully empowered CCRB– and voted to recommend a “review-only” panel on November 2.

At the City Council meeting on December 5, NRPD Deputy Commissioner and CPPB Co-Chair Neil Reynolds argued that union representatives on the CCRB could “explain things from a police perspective,” help “[build] a relationship between the Union and those members on the board,” and “[open] up a dialogue where everybody comes together.”  

The Community Co-Chair of the CPPB, Pastor David Holder, disagreed.  “My personal view is that we should all be civilians,” Pastor Holder said, “and then you could simply as needed bring officers in or people representing officers to give an opinion and give context.”

The suggestion that representatives of the police unions might serve on the CCRB was ridiculed by community members at the Council’s Citizens To Be Heard session on December 12.  

Reading a statement from New Rochelle Against Racism (New RoAR), Daphne Torres-Douglas said the proposal “makes a mockery of the notion of independence and guarantees that the board will be completely incapable of effective police oversight.  In order to be trusted as an independent body, a Civilian Complaint Review Board must be entirely civilian,” she said.  She reminded the Council that the “job and expertise” of police union representatives is “precisely to defend police officers regardless of their conduct.”  Their presence,” she continued, “will guarantee that any attempt to hold officers accountable will be mired in confrontation, convert all the Board’s deliberations into adversarial proceedings, open the door to inappropriate influence and potential obstruction, and deeply undermine the public perception of the board as independent. …The idea that these police advocates will be helpful to the board in carrying out its duties,” she said, “is ridiculous. Rather, the New Rochelle Police Department leadership should be directed to provide all information that the board requires and to be available to provide advice and support as needed.”

Other community speakers repeated the demand for a CCRB with full investigative and subpoena powers and criticized the Council’s decision to take up this issue at the tail end of its legislative session.  A new City Council, with three new members and a new  Mayor, will be seated in January.

The agenda for the December 12 City Council meeting did not include the “attachment” proposing police union membership on the CCRB, and the Council passed only the resolution accepting the recommendation of a “review-only” CCRB.  Mayor Noam Bramson described this as a “high-level endorsement of the concept, with details to be determined” by the Council that will be installed in January.